Then we went to the city, to the office of Honorable Gilbert Robertson, Jr., provost judge, and after due inquiry had been made as to “the cause of detention by the said Capt. Boutelle of the said Stanton P. Allen,” the latter “said” was declared to be discharged from Uncle Sam's service. My father refunded the ten dollars bounty, and offered to return the uniform, but Capt. Boutelle refused to accept the clothes, charging that I had obtained property from the Government under false pretenses. Under that charge I was held in five hundred dollars bail, as stated in the _Times_, but the court remarked to my father that “that'll be the end of it, probably, as the captain will be ordered to the front, and there will be no one here to prosecute the case.” As we were leaving Judge Robertson's office, a policeman arrested me. He marched me toward the jail. Pointing to the roof of the prison he said: “My son, I'm sorry for you.” “What are you going to do with me?” I asked. “Put you in jail.” “What for?” “Defrauding the Government. But I'm sorry to see you go to jail. They may keep you there for life. They'll keep you there till the war is over, any way, for people are so busy with the war that they can't stop to try cases of this kind. You are charged with getting into the army without your father's consent. Maybe they won't hang you, but it'll go hard with you, sure. I don't want to see you die in prison. If I thought you'd go home and not run away again, I'd let you escape.” That was enough. I double-quicked it up the street and hid in the hotel barn where my father's team was until he came along. I was ready to go home with him. I did not know at that time that the arrest, after I had been bailed, was a put-up job. It was intended to frighten me. And it worked to a charm. It was a regular Bull Run affair. CHAPTER II. _The War Fever Again--Going to a Shooting Match--Over the Mountains to Enlist--A Question of Age--Sent to Camp Meigs--The Recruit and the Corporal--The Trooper's Outfit--A Cartload of Military Traps--Paraded for Inspection--An Officer who Had Been through the Mill._ [Illustration: 9025] RETURNED to Berlin very much discouraged. There had not been anything pleasant about our camp life in Troy--the food was poorly cooked, the camp discipline was on the go-as-you-please order at first, and sleeping on a hard bunk was not calculated to inspire patriotism in lads who had always enjoyed the luxury of a feather bed. Yet the thought that I was a Union soldier, and a Griswold cavalryman to boot, had acted as an offset to the hardships of camp life, and after my return home the “war fever” set in again. The relapse was more difficult to prescribe for than the first attack. The desire to reach the front was stimulated by the taunts of the wiseacres about the village who would bear down on me whenever I chanced to be in their presence, as follows: “Nice soldier, you are!” “How do the rebels look?”